^ ^'UAMvio^ Monographs 



. T7 C45 
-opy 1 






Vol. Ill 






<3 



December i6, 1919 



No. I 



TRANSIT IN 
OLD 'TIME NEW YORK 





17 



Printed on Hamilton Enamel by- 
Publishers Printing Company, New- 
York. The illustrations are from the 
collection of old prints o'wned by The 
New York Historical Society, which 
graciously permitted their reproduction 
in this Monograph. Acknowledge 
ment is also made of the kind and 
courteous aid in the preparation of 
this paper by Mr. A. J. Wall, of the 
Society. 



HUE 

Publisher 
JUN 28 1920 



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ll'/ien Bunvliiiir Green --cas the transit center of Ne-iv York 

TRANSIT IN 
OLD-TIME NEW YORK 



SINCE the early Colonial days 
dust-covered diligences from 
far-ofF New England and the remote 
town of Albany had rolled into the 
City of New York by way of the 
Boston Post Road and the Bloom- 
ingdale Road. They then pro- 
ceeded down Broadway to Wall 
Street. 

Then, too, there was a stage line, 
which carried venturesome tourists 
to the outlying villages of Green- 
wich, Yorkville, and Harlem. 

Moreover, in 1827, Abraham 
Brower had started running a cov- 
ered conveyance seating twelve 
persons, which had been built for 
him by John Stevenson. He called 
his carriage an "Accommodation." 



His route was over Beekman Street 
to Wall Street, and he picked up and 
dropped his fares as they listed, his 
charge being a shilling, regardless of 
the distance traveled. Two years 
later he added a closed coach, which 
he named the "Sociable." 

But these startling innovations 
had not prepared the good towns- 
people for the sensational spectacle 
which met their eyes one memorable 
day in 1831. An enormous vehicle 
drawn by four horses and bearing 
in large letters, the legend "Omnibus 
— A. Brower," came rumbling down 
Broadway, The tradesmen ran 
from their shops, and the residents 
along Broadway hurried to the 
windows of their homes to behold 




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BROADWAY IN 1831 

In this year Abraham Brower started his omnibus-line. Unless the artist gave too 

free a rein to his imagination, we must conclude that the congestion before St. Paul's 

Church was hardly less than it is to-day. 



this, the eighth wonder of the 
world. They said, " Brower is surely 
overdoing it. His 'Accommoda- 
tion' was all right and his 'Soci- 
able' was all right, but there never 
will be traffic enough in this city to 
also support this great ark of an 
Omnibus." 

But they were wrong. In spite 
of the exorbitant fare — for a shilling 
in those days amounted to almost 
as much as a dollar now — Brower's 
line prospered. Bus after bus was 
added until the people, who at first 
were proud of the city's progress, 



began to complain of the congestion 
on Broadway. The drivers of those 
omnibuses must have been terrible 
fellows — direct ancestors, no doubt, 
of the taxi-drivers of to-day. A 
contemporary bemoans the times 
and the customs. "The character 
of the omnibus-drivers has become 
brutal and dangerous to the highest 
degree," he writes. "They race up 
and down Broadway and through 
Chatham Street with the utmost 
fury. Broadway, especially be- 
tween the Park and Wall Street, is 
almost daily the scene of some out- 




EN ROUTE TO HARLEM, 1878 

The wooden trestle shown in this picture was built along what was then called Fourth 
Avenue, across the valley between looth Street and Ii6th Street. At this time the 
New York and Harlem ran to a station on the present site of Madison Square Garden, 
passing through the Fourth Avenue Tunnel, through which the Madison Avenue 

trolleys now run. 



rage in which the lives of citizens 
riding in light vehicles are put in 
imminent hazard. Not content with 
running upon everything which 
comes in their way, they turn out of 
their course to break down other 
carriages. A ferocious spirit seems 
to have taken possession of the 
drivers, who defy the laws and de- 
light in destruction." 

However, the death-knell of the 
omnibus had already sounded. In 
1832 the New York and Harlem 
Railway Company laid a pair of 
tracks from Prince Street to Four- 
teenth Street, and placed thereon a 
"street-car," built by the same 
redoubtable Stevenson who had 



made the Brower omnibuses. This 
horse-drawn railway-car was named 
"John Mason," after the president 
of the Chemical National Bank, 
who, I suspect, may have put his 
hand into his pocket to help along 
the enterprise. It was a great, lum- 
bering vehicle, containing three 
compartments, each of which seated 
ten passengers. Thirty more could 
ride on the roof, to which access was 
gained by a flight of steps at the 
end of the contrivance. 

In 1845 Stevenson changed the 
design of his car, omitting the side 
doors and crosswise seats, adopting 
end doors and side seats. 

In those good old days before a 




THE VOYAGE TO BROOKLYN, 1858 

If we would believe the engravers of old New York, the East River was wider and the 

waves more tumultuous in those days than now. The New-Yorker was, indeed, 

venturesome who would hazard the perils of those wild waters to go to Brooklyn! 




NEW YORK PIER OF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE, 1876 

The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge was perhaps the greatest engineering achieve- 
ment of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Long Island is now moored to the 
American continent by five great bridges. 




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malevolent and soulless corporation 
offered to carry a passenger from 
the most northerly extremity of 
New York to Atlantic Avenue, 
Brooklyn, a distance of about 
twenty miles, in an electric-lighted, 
solid vestibule, steel car, which runs 
smoothly, swiftly, and safely over 
heavy rails, charging for this service 
about a quarter of a cent a mile, 
in those good old days of horse- 
cars, our grandfathers allowed an 
hour and a quarter to go from 
Twenty-third Street to Vesey Street. 
The cars were small and smelled 
like a menagerie. In winter the 
floors were covered with straw to 



prevent the feet of the passengers 
from becoming frost-bitten. At night 
the car was illuminated by two 
kerosene lamps, one placed in each 
end, which instead of dispelling the 
darkness only accentuated it. The 
tracks were so badly laid that the 
ride gave all the thrills of a Coney 
Island scenic railway. At intervals 
the joints were most uneven, and 
the passengers received shocks which 
almost jolted out of them their 
immortal souls. 

Is it any wonder that some more 
modern and comfortable method of 
travel was demanded by a truly 
"long-suffering public".'' 




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PROPOSED ARCADE UNDER BROADWAY 

In 1867 the Legislature recommended that the solution of New York's transit problem 
lay in underground railroads. Here is one of the many schemes formulated at this time. 




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BROADWAY AT CITY HALL PARK DURING THE CI\"IL WAR, 
SHOWING THE FAMOUS BROADWAY BUSSES. 

For many years attempts had been made to gain a franchise for a street-car line on 
Broadway, but the merchants always fought the "desecration of the Highway." 

On July 31. 1867, a special com- inspect New York's first subway. 

mission, which had been appointed They entered a car which was pro- 

b}^ the State Senate to ascertain the pelled by a most ingenious method, 

best means for the transportation Be it remembered that the employ- 

of passengers for the City of New ment of electricity for turning a 

York, published a report in which it motor was still m its infancy. It 

recommended that "In the opinion was obvious that a steam-locomotive 

of the Commission, the best method could not be used in a closed tunnel, 

of speedily attaining the design and so the plan was adopted of 

contemplated is by the construction literally blowing the car along the 

of underground railroads." tracks by means of powerful fans 

Soon thereafter capital was raised set at the end of the tunnel, 

and a tunnel eight feet in diameter The promoters promised to build 

was dug under Broadway between this tunnel from the Battery to 

Murray and Warren Streets. On Harlem and to run in it cars one 

April 26, 1870, guests were invited to hundred feet long — but the funds 




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FULTON STREET BRIDGE, 
BUILT IN 1866 

Congestion over Broadway was so acute 
that this bridge was built to span the 
thoroughfare. People, however, preferred 
dodging the busses and trucks to climbing 
the stairs, and the bridge was taken down 
the next year. 

were never forthcoming and the 
enterprise was abandoned. 

Another ambitious scheme called 
for the construction of an under- 
ground arcade, having sidewalks and 
shops on either side and a roadbed 
in the middle, along which should 
glide cars propelled by compressed 
air. But this, too, came to 
nothing. 

Meanwhile, another group of 
capitalists was hard at work erect- 
ing an elevated railroad. On July 2, 



1867, the first section was completed. 
It ran from Battery Place, through 
Greenwich Street and Ninth Avenue 
to Thirteenth Street. At first it was 
operated by cable, but soon steam- 
locomotives were substituted. Alas, 
however, for the pioneer investors. 
In 1871 the road was sold out by the 
sheriff. 

The next few years were full of 
trouble for the promoters of the 
elevated railway. Not only did they 
find it difficult to persuade investors 
to furnish the capital, but their lives 
were made miserable by litigation 
and the efforts to gain franchises 
and to obtain the rights of way. 
However, perseverance triumphed, 
as it always does, and in 1875 a 
commission which had been ap- 




LAYING THE CABLES IN LOWER 
BROADWAY 



pointed by the Legislature reported 
in favor of granting a franchise for 
the elevated railroads. 

Now things began to go along 
swimmingly. Funds were rapidly 
forthcoming, and in 1876 the Green- 
wich Street road was extended to 
Fifty-ninth Street. The elated offi- 
cers issued a public announcement 
in which they boasted that they 
were running forty trains a day! 

In the spring of the next year, 
Cyrus W. Field purchased the con- 
trolling interest in the line and put 
the force of his indomitable per- 
sonality back of the enterprise. 



On July 5, 1876, the Sixth 
Avenue line was opened from Rector 
Street to Central Park. On April 
26 of the same year, the rival road 
on Third Avenue was opened to 
Forty-second Street. 

The next year saw the consolida- 
tion of the two companies under 
the name of the Manhattan Railway 
Company. In 1880, the Second 
Avenue line was opened to Sixty- 
seventh Street. Soon the elevated 
railroads on both sides of the city 
were extended to the Harlem River. 

On July 24, 1916, a little horse- 
car, drawn by two cadaverous 



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NEW YORK'S FIRST "KL." 

In 1 868 a block of experimental elevated railroad was built along Greenwich Street 
south of Morris. The next year it was extended as far as Cortlandt Street. 



13 



horses, passed under the Municipal —this relic of ancient days — had 
Building going toward Broadway. passed, the last reminder of old- 
It disappeared in the west. And time transportation of New York 
when this phantom-like horse-car, faded from the eye of man. 




BUILDING THE ELEVATED 

This is the reproduction of a photograph taken in 1879. The 

wilderness through which the road is being constructed is Ninth 

Avenue and Sixty-fifth Street. 



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